The Evolution of Human Intellect 285 
which come in the mental life of man to outweigh and hide it. 
But it is the basal fact. ! As we follow the development 
of animals in time, we find the capacity to select impulses 
growing. We find the associations thus made between 
situation and act growing in number, being formed more 
quickly, lasting longer and becoming more complex and 
more delicate., The fish can learn to go to certain places, to 
take certain paths, to bite at certain things and refuse others, 
but not much more. It is an arduous proceeding for him 
to learn to get out of a small pen by swimming up through 
a hole in a screen. The monkey can learn to do all sorts 
of things. It is a comparatively short and easy task for 
him to learn to get into a box by unhooking a hook, pushing 
a bar around and pulling out a plug. He learns quickly 
to climb down to a certain place when he sees a letter T 
on a card and to stay still when he seesa K. He performs 
the proper acts nearly as well after 50 days as he did when 
they were fresh in his mind. 
| This growth in the number, speed of formation, perma- 
nence, delicacy and complexity of associations possible for 
an animal reaches its acme in the case of man. Even if we 
leave out of question the power of reasoning, the possession 
of a multitude of ideas and abstractions and the power of 
control over impulses, purposive action, man is still the 
intellectual leader of the animal kingdom by virtue of the 
superior development in him of the power of forming as- 
sociations between situations or sense-impressions and acts, 
by virtue of the degree to which the mere learning by 
selection possessed by all intelligent animals has advanced. 
In man the type of intellect common to the animal kingdom 
finds its fullest development, and with it is combined the 
hitherto nonexistent power of thinking about things and 
rationally directing action in accord with thought. | 
